Mid-range · 12-hour walk · Paris
Paris in a day: Versailles and the Seine
The palace at opening, the gardens and the Grand Canal, Marie Antoinette's Trianon and hamlet, then back to Saint-Germain and a boat on the river after dark.
The obvious second day in Paris is Versailles, and it is obvious because it is right. Take the RER C out early — the palace opens at nine, closes on Mondays and fills by ten — and give it the whole of the daylight: the state rooms first, the gardens at lunchtime and Marie Antoinette's estate in the afternoon, when the groups have gone back to their coaches. Come back to the Left Bank for the evening and see the city from the water.
The route, stop by stop
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Palace of Versailles
The state apartments and the Hall of Mirrors, 357 mirrors along the garden front. Go through the King's rooms at your own pace; the crowd moves as a block, so let it pass.
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Grand Canal
Down the long garden axis past the Latona fountain to Apollo rising from the water and the Grand Canal beyond. Lunch at the canal head, and hire a rowing boat after; on show days the fountains run to music.
90 min here Walk here → -
Petit Trianon
The small neoclassical château Louis XVI gave Marie Antoinette in 1774, where she escaped the court, and the formal and English gardens around it.
60 min here Walk here → -
Queen's Hamlet
The rustic village she had built in the 1780s, with a working farm, a mill and a lake. Thatched, whimsical and far more beautiful than it has any right to be.
45 min here Walk here → -
Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Arrive by train from the previous stop
Back on the RER to the Left Bank. The oldest church in Paris, and the two cafés opposite, Les Deux Magots and the Café de Flore, where Sartre and de Beauvoir worked, for an aperitif.
60 min here Walk here → -
Pont des Arts
The footbridge between the Institut de France and the Louvre, cleared of its love locks in 2015, with the Île de la Cité pointing downstream at sunset.
20 min here Walk here → -
Seine river cruise
From the tip of the island, an hour on the river past the lit-up Louvre, Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower on the hour, when it sparkles.
60 min here Walk here →
More in Paris
Every walking route in Paris, or the full Paris guide for where to stay and what a day costs.